About my adventures with computers, digital photography, motorcycling, plus family and friends.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

2015 East Trip - Day 9

Cabot Trail!
It was a great ride. If you do it without stopping, it will take you about 4 hours or so. That would be a mistake. The lookouts are actually signed and paved, so they are safe for timid folks like me. Remember, I've already broken a peg this trip... .
And,
I have some videos, but they might appear in a few days. And, apparently I managed to not record what I most wanted to record, the switchbacks. It is impossible to see the tiny little red light that says the camera is recording while riding. It looks like I got it reversed - turned the camera off when I wanted it on. Still, the video looks like it shows the rather worn state of pavement at the tip of the trail.

I did stop and took these photos:

The sun only appears around noon, but it really helped make this sky pop.

Lots of bikes on the Trail. Not as many as on the weekend. I would say that on a weekend, there are the same number of bikes one would see on Vancouver Island, at least during peak vacation periods.

There are some sites that appeal to me; this is one of them.

I asked someone to take this shot, just to prove I really was here.

I went back to the Bell Buoy Restaurant. Today, I had the fresh Halibut. The server did not think it had come in yet! He returned all excited, said it just did come in. So, I ordered it and let me tell you, fresh halibut is delicious. The chef does a number of treatments, I had the mango salsa version, and it was great.

The local yacht club is on the left, and there is a small harbour. I parked down there yesterday, but found a spot on the street today.

Ok, now the sad part. PEI was being considered, but the available rooms are in the stratosphere as far as cost. I also think some of these internet sites are doing a scam, offering a price such as $115 and then saying sorry you had a connection problem, call us. When you do, the price is hugely increased, in the order of $159.

So, I decided to go to the distillery at Glenora and buy a bottle of single malt and pass on PEI. So that province and NL will remain the two Canadian provinces in which I have not ridden. It's possible I could return to do them, perhaps in June or September, but realistically... .

In any case, the riding roads in Gaspe and here in Cape Breton are right up there at the very top of bike roads anywhere in the world. I'm glad I did the run to Moncton to get the new tire and return to do the Cabot Trail. I even bought the T-shirt at the pub owned by this fellow: http://cabottrailbiker.com/

He is very helpful to all visitors on bikes and I have enjoyed my emails with him.

So folks, I am turning the corner tomorrow and heading home. I will give some thought of what to do on the way so it won't be a huge slab ride.

Chip in with suggestions if you care to. Just don't be offended if they don't fit in with my trip.

Videos: just checked with the processing that is going on in the background. It is not complete after a couple of hours of processor grinding away. I should explain that I follow the GoPro workflow which creates big files as a sort of digital intermediate that then allows you to save in economic sizes for cloud storage while retaining the immense files on your computer. Filled up the damn hard drive today! Stuck in a 32 GB empty micro SD I have for backup use on the GoPro and found it was not big enough! There is a problem here, but it's too late for me to solve it.

4 comments:

Cabot Trail photos are fantastic. Too bad you are going to miss the Island. On your way down through the Gaspe did you follow 132 all the way from Montreal, because it is a lovely ride along the river (at Montreal you can switch to 30 and completely by pass Montreal and all the traffic.) I also like the trip back going through the US - crossing at St. Stephen / Calais then you can wander through the mountains to Lake Champlain even wander over to the finger lakes area before turning north. It's beautiful there.Too bad about the filled hard drive. I carry a terrabyte external drive that I download my photos. I upload photos that I will use to post to the cloud from the external drive. It also has a few movies on it for rainy nights in the tent.Ride safe.

I noticed watching the Tour de France stages that they use GoPro cameras but they seem to mount them in front of the windshield with suction cups. Not sure about that mounting but you can certainly see them. Just sayin...